What if, just for today, you assumed that everything you believe is false? That the others are, in fact, right. That their objections to your project proposal are valid. That the complaints about the usability of your product are rooted in the fact that they deeply care about your product rather than that they are just too lazy to use it properly?
What if things look completely different when looking from their perspective? What if they have to deal with constraints that we don’t even know anything about? What if they care about completely different things than we think they do?
Once you start making that posture a habit, it’s amazing how clear you see what was hidden before.
It doesn’t mean that you need to agree with everything that you see. But what it does for you is open up a whole new range of possibilities. Doors open up everywhere. Where, previously, it felt ultra-hard to convince someone, it’s now so much easier to find the right words to attach to what matters to them. Where, previously, it was un-thinkable to change your product, now you see how easy it is – and how important because it’s the right thing to do.
So, here’s a suggestion for today: Pick something that you deeply disagree with and look through the other party’s eyes. Why are they right with what they believe? What do you learn about your own perspective? How can you use what you learnt to be a better communicator?
